


Ace in the Hole

by OriginPilot



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Flirting, Baseball, F/F, Fluff, High School AU, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Slice of Life, Swearing, Violet is a huge gay, i just want my children to be happy, kinda mutual pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 20:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16125830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginPilot/pseuds/OriginPilot
Summary: Violet is beginning to have a harder time suppressing her feelings for the baseball teams ace... who also just so happens to be her best friend.





	Ace in the Hole

When I was ten years old, I met someone extremely special to me.

It started when my parents moved us to a small town in Georgia called Macon. My dad had been struggling for a while to keep the bills paid and my mom was being her normal useless self. 

The neighborhood was fairly quaint. Rows and rows of identical homes with the same blue paint and ugly white trim plastered across the bottom. I remember looking out the window of our minivan, seeing the area for the first time and already wishing we were back in our old town. I didn't like my situation, but I knew better than to complain, little ten-year-old me already understanding that I should just stay quiet and understand that this was something I had no control over.

When we pulled up to the curb of the house, I nervously squeezed my palm around the baseball that I had been tossing between my hands the whole ride there.  
Frowning, I glanced up through my blonde, overgrown bangs and squint my eyes at the house.

My dad gave an excited gasp upon seeing our new home and turned around in his chair to hit the bill of my baseball cap. 

“We finally made it, Vi!” When I didn’t respond to him, he scratched the back of his neck and gave me a knowing glance. “C’mon, Kiddo, don’t look so glum. I’m sure you’ll be able to make plenty of new friends!”

It's obvious that my dad doesn't understand the issue here. I sighed and pulled the bill of my cap out of my face, so I could see again. I knew he wasn’t trying to get on my nerves or anything, I just wasn’t in the mood to be optimistic. 

I pulled the squeaky handle of the old minivan’s door and slid it back until I was able to easily hop out of the car. As soon as I exited and turned back around to grab my bag, something sharp hit me in the back of my head. 

I made a grunt at the unexpected contact. It didn’t really hurt, but I still held a hand to the back of my head and turned around to see what had happened.

“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry!”  


A girl emerged from behind a small hedge that lined the driveway. She looked probably about my age, and she ran up to me continuing to profusely apologize.  


She wore a light-yellow dress and had a baseball cap on as well, but hers looked to be a bit too big for her head, which made it awkwardly tilt to the side. Her voice was really high-pitched, and she looked like she was a little scared of me judging by her feeble looking stance.

I looked down at the ground and saw a small paper airplane lying on the driveway. It took me a second to put two and two together, but I quickly realized that the plane was what must have hit me in the head.

“I’m so sorry about that. You’re okay right? I was just playing and I didn’t mean to throw it over the hedge or anything. I’m really sorry.”

The girl sounded really sincere and I gave her a shy smile as I leaned down to pick up the airplane off the ground, then holding it out for the girl to take. 

“S’okay.” I quietly responded. “You should watch where you throw that though. It could take someone’s eye out.” 

The girl looked surprised for a moment, but she quickly took the plane and gave me a thank you.

“I’ll definitely try to be more careful next time.” She said with an extremely serious face that almost made me laugh. “Sometimes I just get a little too caught up in playing, you know?” 

I gave a nervous nod. “Yeah, I get that.” 

I had never been the best at meeting new people, especially girls my age for some reason. Back home, I had the same two friends since, like, before I could even speak. They were twins and we just got along so well together, which is hard for me to do, since I get along with close to no one. 

Suddenly thinking about how I had left them behind made me sad, and I looked to the ground with a frown. 

The girl across from me nervously fidgeted with her plane and gave me a questioning look. “Are you new to the neighborhood? I saw some big moving trucks here earlier.”

I shrugged and awkwardly twisted the baseball I still held in my hand.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” The girl asked.

I just shrugged again and the girl squinted her eyebrows at me cutely. “Well, if you are moving in, then that must mean we’re neighbors!” She happily clapped her hands, being careful not to crush the paper plane as she did so.

My eyes widened out of realization and I offered her a small smile, to let her know I was glad. 

“Is that a baseball in your hand?” She asked, pointing to the ball in my fidgeting palm.

My face lit up slightly at her comment. “Do you like to play baseball?” I asked her excitedly.

Much to my disappointment, she shook her head. “My dad keeps telling me I should join the local little-league team, but I’m not sure if I want to. I’ve never even really played before-”

“I could teach you.” I blurted out. 

Wait - why did I say that? I hate teaching people. 

The girl momentarily looked surprised at my outburst, but it was quickly replaced with eagerness. “You could? That would be so fun!” She said, giving me a thousand-watt smile that made me have to look away from her momentarily. 

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked back up at her through the bill of my cap, giving her a small nod that indicated I would be okay with teaching her to play.

“Yay!” She said, holding her hands up and doing a little jump. “Oh, yeah. I’m Clementine by the way.” 

“Clementine.” I repeated, trying it out. “That’s a cool name.” 

She thanked me and immediately looked at me expectantly, making me feel dumb for forgetting that I hadn’t even told her my name yet. 

“I’m Violet.”

*****

Most of my mornings are just like this one. 

I wake up peacefully, have a nice and quiet breakfast, if I’m lucky say hey to Clem on my way out of the house, and then walk past Louis’s house, pretending I don’t see him waiting for me on his front porch.

Currently, I’m being repeatedly nagged by Louis about how slow I’m walking on our way to school. It’s kind of like our routine, where the more he mentions something I’m doing irritates him, the more I do it. So, of course, I slow my leisurely pace even more, making Louis groan in annoyance. 

“C’mon, Vi! My grandma could walk faster than you!”

I roll my eyes at his expectedly dramatic reaction. “Your grandma is literally in a wheelchair, Louis.”

Louis scoffs and puts a hand to his chest, as though he’s offended. “So, what? She could still beat you to school any time. I’ve seen her zipping around on that thing and, trust me, you would not want to get in her way.”

Blowing some hair out of my face, I just roll my eyes again and shake my head. 

Louis and I are pretty much exact opposites, but we somehow manage to be best friends despite that. I’m on the baseball team, while he’s in band and drama club. We both kind of have our own quirks here and there that annoy each other, yet we’ve somehow managed to stay as close as we are through high school. 

Granted he’s also dating our team leader, Marlon, so I’m kind of forced to see him at practice all the time. 

And it's not that I mind walking to school with him either, but I would much rather prefer to walk to school with Clem. The problem there is that the only way she ever wakes up on time is when we have morning practice in the fields, and even then, half the time I have to send her about ten texts before she finally responds that she’s awake.

“Do you have practice after school today? If you don’t, there’s this new ice cream shop that just opened down the street that Brody won’t shut up about. We should all go to try it out.” Louis suggests. 

I shake my head at him. “Sorry, no can do. practice starts right after school today. We do get out a little early, but I have work.” 

“Ugh, you guys always have practice. How many times can you hit a ball into a field before you start to lose your mind.”

“It’s not my choice, Lou. Semi-finals are coming up soon and everyone needs to be as prepared as they can.” 

“Whatever.” Louis says with a sigh. “I guess I’m not complaining too much, seeing a guy like Marlon with that uniform and bat, running around and shouting out orders… it does things to a man.” 

“Jesus Christ. You’re fucking disgusting.” I grimace at him and quicken my pace a bit.

Louis, now struggling to catch up to me, makes a noise of protest at my quickening pace. “Hey, it’s not my fault your still jealous that he got less out-pitches then Clem during that practice game yesterday.” 

I feel a smirk grow on my face. “Hah, he wishes he was as good at pitching as Clem is. She’s our Ace.”

Louis cackles and nudges my shoulder with his as we enter the school gates. "C’mon, you're just saying that because you want to make out with her."

"I do not want to make out with her!" I hiss at him, feeling an unwelcomed heat rise in my cheeks.

"Oh, really? Hold on a sec." Louis pretends to pull out a pen and starts writing something down on his hand.

"What the fuck are you doing?" 

"Who, me? Nothing much, I just did some calculations, and I've come to the conclusion that you're full of shit."

I immediately rear my leg back and slam my boot into Louis's foot as hard as I can, causing him to let out a high-pitched yelp as he hops in place.

"Knock it off! And don’t say things like that.” I hotly respond, attempting to ignore how flustered I was getting. 

Louis usually knows better than to tread into that territory, but I guess he must have been feeling particularly annoying this morning.

“Okay, okay! Geez, there’s no need to get violent.” Louis says, shaking out his foot with a grimace. 

“Whatever.” I say, secretly feeling a little bad about kicking him. “I’m going to class now. I’ll catch you later.” 

*****

When I get to the locker room, to change into my uniform, I come to the realization that I must be the first one here. Granted, I usually am, but sometimes there are a few other people already milling about. 

Walking through the empty room, I pass by a few rows of lockers until I reach my own, and as soon as I step around the corner, I realize I’m not actually the first one here. 

Clementine is sitting on the bench in front of her locker, yanking her already fully buttoned Jersey on over her head and pulling it down promptly. I catch myself staring and hastily fix my gaze to my own locker across from hers.

Upon noticing my presence, she gives me a smile and waves me over to her. “Hey, Vi, come check this out.” 

I nod questioningly and walk over to my locker to set my equipment down on the bench before turning to face her. 

“Look.” She says, taking out a brand new black and brown glove from her bag and handing it to me.

“…Holy shit.” I say, realizing what kind of glove this was. The brand of the glove is Wilson, which already makes this thing crazy expensive, but it’s also one of the newer builds, making this thing extremely rare. “How the hell did you get this? It must have cost a fortune.” 

Clem grins and takes the glove back to put it on her hand. “Lee gave it to me. He said he found a really good deal on it and bought it for me as a late birthday gift.” 

Lee is Clementine’s dad, and he basically spoilers her silly. She only calls him Lee because he’s her adopted father, and she often claims he feels more like a friend than a dad. I honestly find their relationship kind of endearing; he’s always been a really nice man and even encouraged Clem to actually join the baseball team as opposed to her only tossing it around with me in her front yard every day. 

Which, honestly, was a great decision. Not only do I get to spend more time with Clem, but she’s actually insanely good. Almost scary good. I wasn’t just joking with Louis earlier when I said she was our Ace. She’s the best pitcher I’ve ever seen. She can throw fastballs and sliders like a madman, and the most unpredictable knuckleballs that rarely don’t succeed in striking out.

“You sure you want to use that thing during practice? Who knows what would come of it if that leather wore out too quickly.” I say, walking back over to my locker to get changed.

Clem nods confidently, turning back on her bench to lace up her cleats. “It’ll be fine, Vi. You worry too much. These things are made to last a long time.” 

“Whatever you say.” I shrug and start changing into my uniform. “But I hope you know I’ll be expecting better averages from you with a glove like that.” I tease her.

Clem laughs. “That’s ridiculous. It’s like saying giving you a different colored bat will make your batting average go up.”

“Maybe it would.” I casually inquire. “I hear red is an easier color to spot.”

“Wanna bet?” Clem questions, looking over her shoulder and smirking at me.

Footsteps round the corner to where our lockers are, and I look up to find Brody and Ruby giving us equally disdained looks.

“Oh, please not again you two.” Brody says, sighing and setting down her bag on the bench. “I can’t deal with another one of your dumb attempts to outdo each other.”

We joke around some more as the other team members begin filling into the locker room to get ready for practice. 

Our team is coed, so there’s girls and boys on it, also hence why Marlon is our team leader. Our school is pretty small, so during tryouts they just put the applicants for the girls and boys team together, and that’s how the Erikson Vipers became the clusterfuck that it is. 

Not that we’re a bad team, far from it actually, we’ve made it to the statewide semi-finals after all, but… it wasn’t always like this. It took us years of hard work to get to the point we are now. Hours and hours of standing in batting cages, throwing swings that eventually began to all meld together in one big period of nonstop effort. 

But that effort has definitely paid off, seeing as I’m among the top batting averages on the team. 

Practice always starts out the same, we jog onto the field and pair up to do some practice throws as Louis makes googly eyes at Marlon from the stands, who’s walking around and telling what throws he wants us to make. After that we all split up into our specialties, so of course I go over to the pitching machines to practice my batting, while people like Clem and Brody take to the far side of the field to practice pitching. 

As I step up in front of the machine, I readjust the cap on my head and knock one of my cleats on the edge of the diamond, something I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. A ritual, if you will.

“Do you have to do that every time?” I hear Aasim, one of my teammates on the machine next to me, complain.

I hit the first ball that comes at me cleanly into the net behind the machine before giving him an irritated side-glance. “I don’t know. Do you have to bunt the ball every time you’re up to bat?” 

Aasim gives me a disapproving look. He was known for hitting a lot of bunts, granted he was often one of our trump cards we would pull when the other team wasn’t expecting it, but I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of letting him know that.

“There’s nothing wrong with bunting. You’re the one who always takes the risky shots.” Aasim grunts.

The machine spits out another ball in my direction that I have to slightly lean forward a bit to be able to hit. It ricochets off the ground and flies towards the corner of the batting cage, making a loud rattling noise.

Aasim turns to me, looking irked at my carelessness. 

I just shrug and face the machine again, preparing for the next pitch. “Well, those are the best kinds of shots to take, right?”

*****

Most people head home to finish up their schoolwork or watch some TV and unwind after a full two and a half hours of practice - but not me. Nope. I get to go work for another four hours, leaving me with little to no free time during the day.

I actually do like where I work though. It’s a local bookstore that’s in the Macon Town Center, and it’s located towards the back end, so not a lot of people come around there. I usually just do homework or get on my phone when business is particularly slow, which is honestly most days, but I really don’t mind it that much.

The store owner is a nice middle-aged woman named Katjaa who always gives me a lollipop when she stops by while I’m working. Only bad thing about her is that she sometimes brings her annoying kid named Duck, who one time yanked on my nametag so hard he broke it. 

Today has been slow as usual. I spent a majority of time stocking and rearraigning the books into their correct order on the shelves, only occasionally taking my position behind the register when someone came in. I only have half an hour until my shift is over, and it’s already dark outside, so to distract me from my boredom, I take to reading a horror comic about aliens that was on one of the stands near the register. 

Just as it’s getting to the part where the aliens begin to form a society on earth, I hear a familiar little jingle that indicates someone has entered the store.

Looking up, I spot Clementine walking in and giving me a small wave. “Hey, Vi. Is this place still open?” She questions.

I blink out of surprise and dumbly nod my head. “Y-Yeah, we’re still open. What’re you doing here?”

Clem gives a halfhearted shrug and makes her way over to where I sit on my stool at the register, leaning her elbows onto the counter and letting out a long breath of air. 

It isn’t odd for Clem to be coming into the shop or anything, she usually comes in at least once a week, but it is weird that she’s coming in so late.

“AJ wanted me to pick him up another one of those Goosebumps books. I’ve been reading them to him nonstop lately and I think he’s obsessed.”

I give a laugh and swivel around in my stool, so I can hop off and help Clem find a book. “Oh, yeah. Those a pretty popular with kids. I wouldn’t recommend letting him start reading any Captain Underpants though, the parents always groan about it to me when they buy them.”

Clem nods and adjusts her usual Dodgers hat, something that I’ve always thought looked really good on her. “Noted. But he still refuses to read anything that’s not in the horror or adventure category.”

“Seriously?” I ask, leading her to the right isle. 

“Yep. Although I think he might’ve recently added sci-fi to his list of acceptable genres.” 

“Smart kid.” I say, reaching the right section and handing her one of the Goosebumps books that I know she doesn’t have yet.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” She says, flipping the book around to skim the back cover. “Every time he reads these books he always ends up climbing into my bed in the middle of the night, telling me he had a nightmare.”

“Geez… Are you sure you want to get him another one?” I question, eyeing Clem curiously.

She shrugs. “Eventually he’ll realize that all this stuff isn’t realistic, or even scary for that matter. I’m just hoping it happens soon.” 

I feel a smirk form on my lips as I walk back to the register to ring her up, Clem following closely behind me. “Based on how long it takes you to recover whenever we watch scary movies, I’ll bet it might be a while.”

“Hey!” Clementine huffs good-naturedly, lightly smacking my arm with the hardcover. “At least I’m not as bad as you are when we go on rollercoasters.”

I groan and run a hand over my face as Clementine tries to stifle a laugh. “Clem, please. You know I get nauseous thinking about that.” 

“What about The Manta, remember that?” 

“Oh god, no. That was one of the worst experiences of my fucking life.” I grimace, thinking about the horrible rollercoaster that had multiple loops and one of those huge drops that makes your stomach fly into your throat. As soon as I had gotten off it, I had to run to the nearest trashcan to vomit. 

“C’mon, it wasn’t that bad.” Clem says, handing me her book to scan. 

“Yes, it was.” I deadpan back at her. 

“Aww, don’t be like that.” She says, leaning her side onto the counter. “I thought it was cute that you wanted to try and face your fears and all.”

I roll my eyes, knowing she was joking but still feeling a pang in my chest at her words. “Heh, yeah, I bet it was real cute when I emptied my lunch into that trashcan.”

“Sure, it was.” Clem says, holding her hand out for me to give her the extra change. “By the way, how long until you get off work? We should get something to eat if you get off soon.”

I look at the clock on the wall by the register, noticing that time has gone by fairly quickly. 

“My shift ends in like fifteen minutes but you should go home, Clem. It’s already dark out.”

“Always so concerned for my safety. Vi, I think your caring side is showing.” Clem says, sarcastically.

“S-Shut up.” I stutter, caught off guard by her comment. “Of course I’m concerned. There’s, like, robbers and shit out at night.”

“Whatever you say, but I know if we don’t get something to eat, you’ll go home and fall asleep before you can even make yourself anything.”

She did have a point there. I regret telling her that bit of information a while back, when I had forgotten to eat anything for two days. She had made a big deal out of it and had Lee drive us out to dinner immediately. 

“Okay, fine.” I say, grabbing the keys and locking up the register. “Give me a few minutes to close everything up and we can go.”

Before I left, I made sure that everything was locked up and that all of the lights were turned off; Clementine even helped me check some of the lights in the back. I made sure I opened the door for her on our way out and offered to carry the bag I’d given her to hold her book in, but she declined.

It was after we left the store that Clem suggested we go to Sonic, since it was close and they apparently have a new slushy flavor out. 

When we reach the fast food place, we both ordered our meals and sat on one of the outdoor tables while we waited for them to bring it out. Once we got our food, we thanked the server and moved to sit on the curb of the street, so we could play I spy, which is one of Clementine’s many favorite games to play. 

“I spy something red.” Clem starts, while simultaneously taking out a huge chunk of her burger. 

“Hmm… is it - that stop sign?” I ask.

“Nope.” Clem says, shaking her head at me. “It also has some yellow on it.”

“Uhh, okay. Is it… the house over there?” I guess, pointing to a small home on the other side of the street.

“Nope.” 

I make a few more futile guesses and Clem describes the object a few more times, but to no avail. I only agreed to play this because it’s a favorite of Clem’s, but I’ve always been really bad at it, regardless of my generally more observant nature.

“The hell… is this even a real thing or are you fucking with me?” I ask, beginning to feel irritated.

“It is, It is!” Clem tries to reason with me.

“Well, I give up, so tell me.” 

Clem takes a sip of her slushy and points to a man sitting on a bench near the bus stop; He’s wearing a yellow bucket hat and has a red T-shirt on. Clem then laughs at the irritated expression I make at the man.

“How the hell did I miss that…” I mutter angrily to myself, while taking a sip of my own slushy. “This game is stupid.”

“Geez.” Clem says. “Would it have been easier if I went with something like - I spy someone with an attitude problem?”

“Oh, you’re really gonna go there, huh? Fine. I spy someone who’s acting like a smartass.”

“Touché.”

When we both look at each other, we can’t help but burst out laughing. I almost end up choking on my slushy, which only makes us laugh even harder.

Clem then bumps my shoulder with hers and I raise an eyebrow at her before bumping her back with slightly more force. We continue doing this until we’re almost pushing each other into the sidewalk and laughing our asses off. 

*****

After we finished eating, we started walking back to our houses. 

Moving to this town so suddenly when I had been such a young age, well, it hadn’t been easy for me to adjust to this small enclosed town. Clementine’s constant presence when I was younger is what basically helped me through that time of my life, and I still feel incredibly lucky to have her as my neighbor and my best friend. 

She’s the one who helped me get adjusted to all the shit that was happening around me, the one who forced me to hang out with her friends, so I wouldn’t keep acting like an anti-social prick. I think of her in such high regards that I honestly scare myself sometimes. 

As we turn onto a side-road that leads to our neighborhood, I look to the side at an odd clearing I’ve never seen before. 

Raising a quizzical eyebrow at the clearing, I stop in my tracks and change directions to get a better look. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that Clem realized I wasn’t beside her and turned around to see where’d I’d gone off to.

“Uh, Vi? What’re you looking at?”

“Have you ever seen this lot before?” I ask, pointing to the open space covered in dirt patches and half-dead grass.

Clementine walks over to where I had gone off the sidewalk and gives it a look. “Oh, yeah. I remember this.” She says, shifting her backpack and continuing to walk towards the clearing. “Remember when the neighborhood comity wanted to try building a playground?”

I nod, crossing my arms and following closely behind Clementine.

“And remember how it got cancelled because they couldn’t get the funds?”

I nod again, remembering the day where twelve-year-old Clem and I were devastated to hear the news that we wouldn’t be getting a new place to play.

“Well, I think when it got cancelled they had already cleared the land for it. But since they never really finished it, it kind of just turned into an empty lot I guess.” Clem says, shrugging and turning around to face me.

We’re standing in the middle of the empty field now, making it more difficult to see, since we’re a good distance away from the street lights that lined the sidewalks. There are one or two large lights on the edge of the lot though, making everything dim but still visible.

“Want to throw the ball around for a bit?” Clem questions, reaching into the side-pocket of her bag and clasping a baseball in her hand.

“Won’t Lee be worried about you if you’re out too late?”

“He always does.” Clem, smirks and drops her bag on the ground to dig out her glove. “But I’ll text him and let him know... Plus, I think someone could use some pitching practice before the semi-finals.” 

I groan and drop my bag on the ground as well, yanking the bat from the top of it. “At least let me hit a few first.”

“Nu-uh.” Clem says, walking over and taking the bat out of my hands, ignoring my grunt of protest. “You’re going to need some real work if you want to be as good as me.”

Clem exchanges the bat with her new glove and the ball she had been holding.

“C’mon, Clem. You know you’re our Ace. Don’t give me that we’re all equally talented bullshit. What’s the point of me doing this if you’re gonna be our starting pitcher anyways?”

Clementine tsks at me as she walks a good distance away, turning around and hitting the bat on the dirt with a muffled thump. “Always so pessimistic. Who knows? Maybe you’re going to be a record setter for curveballs one day.”

“I doubt it…” I mutter as I take a deep breath and turn to the side, pointing my shoulder at Clementine. “Which position should I use?”

“Hmm… Let’s say there’s no runners on base. Use windup.” 

I nod and bring both my hands together in front of me, hesitating for a second when I see Clementine give me a wink. After blinking a few times and regaining some of my braincells, I lift my leg and swivel to heave the ball towards Clementine, who’s awaiting my pitch with the bat in hand and a large smirk. 

I wince as Clementine has to swiftly rear back, so the ball doesn’t directly collide with her face, almost losing her balance as she does. 

“Jesus, you can throw a damn good brushback, that’s for sure.” 

“S-Shut up!” I say, feeling my face heat up. “I was just warming up! And I wasn’t trying to hit you!”

Clem laughs, nodding her head and stepping back into position “I know you weren’t, Vi. I’m just fucking with you. But that would’ve been considered balk, since you separated your hands slightly before letting it fly. If there had been any runners on base they would get to advance.”

“I know what it means.” I mumble to myself as I try to rear up for the next pitch.

“Try letting the ball go a little sooner this time and make sure your pivot foot is positioned properly.” Clementine advises. “When you’ve finished pitching, it should leave you in a good position to field the ball, too. Make sure your hands are out in front of you and ready.”

For the next half-hour or so, we go back and forth like this. Me making crummy pitches as Clem tries to coach me on what I’m doing wrong, which is a lot by the way. 

I’ve been playing baseball for almost eleven years now and I still have trouble throwing hittable fastballs. Clementine has only been able to hit a few in the generous amount of time we’ve been throwing the ball around for. It honestly infuriates me that I suck so much at an aspect of a game that I have practically been playing since I was able to walk. 

After another pitch of me winding up and completely chucking the ball outside of the strike zone, I grit my teeth and heatedly kick the dirt out of anger. 

“Gah! This is too fucking hard! I tried telling you I’m no good at this, Clem.” 

Clem takes in a long breath and walks over to where I’m sulking, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be like that. You aren’t that ba-“

I shrug off Clem’s hand and turn away, scuffing the ground with my boot before plopping down on the dirt and holding my knees tightly to my chest. 

“Don’t treat me like a kid. I know I’m not good at this shit. Batting is the only thing I’m even remotely good at.”

I hear Clem sigh and then her boots scuffing across the ground as she breaks the distance between us and carefully sets herself down beside me. 

“You know that’s not true, Vi.” Clem speaks softly. “I know that’s not true. You just need to believe in yourself a little more, yeah?”

I just offer Clem a shrug, instantly feeling even more upset with myself for doing so. Clem is the only person who can cheer me up when I’m acting this way. Whenever I feel like this, even if she’s not there, I always somehow hear her soft voice telling me that I’m okay and that she’s there for me no matter what. She always has been.

“We’re kinda like a battery, Vi.”

I turn to look at Clem from my sulking and raise an eyebrow at her. “A what-now?”

“A battery.” Clem repeats, nodding her head thoughtfully. “It’s what you call a batter and a pitcher that work really well together. A battery.”

I scoff and shake my head. “So… what I’m getting is that I still suck at pitching?” 

Clem waves me off with her hand and laughs good-naturedly. “What I’m saying is that, in a way, we complete each other.”

A sudden silence drops over us as my eyes widen, quickly dropping from Clementine’s own eyes as we both turn away from each other. I think both of us feel too nervous to talk for a few moments… Well, I know I am, but I’m not so sure about Clem. 

“Uh, yeah. I- uh. Yes. That’s a good way to put it. A battery.” 

“…Yeah.” Clem says, quieter this time. “…How about we head back home, okay? We’ve got practice tomorrow and Lee is probably worried about me.”

“Sounds good to me.” I nod, sitting up and offering Clem a hand up when I get to my feet.

The rest of our walk home is pretty uneventful, and as we reach our driveways we wave our goodbyes. 

I wave one last time before entering my door and closing it softly behind me. I reach into my back pocket to grab my phone, silently berating myself for coming home at almost twelve at night. 

Thankfully, I’m able to sneak past my mom, who’s passed out on the couch, and slowly make my way to our back hallway, where my room is. When I enter, I let out a sigh of relief and plop myself down in my desk chair, taking a much needed breather. 

I lay my head down on one of my arms and run a finger across one of the many paper planes that lined the back of my desk. 

Ever since we were little, Clem loved folding these things. She would take up to ten minutes sometimes making sure all the creases were right and that every fold was done with extreme precision. At first, I found it kind of dumb, but after a while I got used to it. 

Because of the ways our houses are aligned, sometimes she’s able to throw one through my bedroom window from her kitchen. It’s usually to ask me questions about homework or practice, but other times she asks me if I want to eat dinner with her and her family, or if I want to venture into the woods behind our houses and hang out at the creek that ran behind our neighborhood.

When we were younger, the creek had been much smaller, allowing us to easily skip across on the random stones that stuck out of the softly flowing water. Now it’s much bigger and it flows a lot faster than it used to, but we still like to visit it every now and then. 

Every time she flew one of these planes through my window I kept it. Clementine knows that I keep some on my desk. When she first found out, I remember her teasing me mercilessly, in classic Clementine fashion. But what she doesn’t know is that I have a whole section in the back of my closet cleared out where I store the rest. Even the planes that fall short of the window and land right outside, I pick them up and keep them.

I know it’s dumb and I shouldn’t care so much… but looking at the brightly folded pieces of paper now, well… it brings an all too rare smile to my face. 

When I was ten years old, I met someone special to me.

She was a person who I unknowingly needed at the time. Someone who I envy and care for to no end.

It happened by accident, yet I think it was more than just a stroke of luck that brought us together. I was able to convince myself of that for so long. 

But I know I can't fool myself much longer. At the end of the day - she's just a girl that I have a huge crush on.

**Author's Note:**

> Realistic side of me: You should probably study for midterms, Pilot. They’re in like a week.  
> Gay side of me: Violentine baseball au NOW.  
> Heyo, I’m Pilot! I would love hearing feedback and your guys thoughts on the first chapter! (There is planned to be four in total)  
> I do know about the news surrounding Telltale and I’m honestly devastated about it, but I’m still going to upload this story and hope for the best.  
> (I also know Violet says she hates baseball but let me live okay)


End file.
